Arbitrary personal power

INDIANOLA, Neb. — I was watching late-night news and saw parents getting into a brawl at a youth game. It was hard to tell who started what and whether any officials were even involved on this video, but often one doesn’t always see what exacerbated the altercation — only what the results were.

I’ve mentioned before that most kids behave in the way their parents allow.  This brings me to a recent very poorly officiated junior varsity game. 

The book person turned around and engaged our fans with her drama.  Granted, we were grumbling about half the calls that my friend for over 14 years was making, but he obviously wasn’t bothered by it.  In his defense, he is the uncle to a couple of kiddos on the team, so maybe this was a conflict of interest. 

This gal was swearing at us and then actually said she “hated” me which probably stems from a letter I wrote to the editor a couple of years ago about this school making a liberal edict that our fans couldn’t attend a game even with masks which I pointed out at the time was about “control” not SCIENCE!

I really don’t think a J.V. game warranted that much animosity!  The varsity games pretty much went without incident due to unbiased officials.

I went to a junior high game just the day before and wasn’t watching any particular team. I just had time to attend since I was in town.  I noticed that both teams’ kids would obviously react when called for a foul, as if to say, “I didn’t do it!”  One particular dad was spoken to by the referee, and he didn’t complain too much after that. But it was his child that continued to deny he was fouling.

The other team was also very aggressive and one kid that fouled out continued to shake his head with a dirty look and another slammed the ball on the court.  Parents and coaches must not tell them this exhibits poor sportsmanship.  Not saying I’m an angel, but my kids are grown and didn’t behave that way on the court.  In fact, none of our kids ever fouled out of a game.  Their coaches would have nipped that behavior in the bud.

Some ideas that may help to combat such occurrences are not expecting family members to ref their kids’ competitions, as it is too easy to give preferential treatment.  Also, to have designated seating for fans away from the visiting fans so as not to be close enough to hear the grumblings, especially when the refs can’t even hear the disappointments. 

Also, whoever is doing the stats should be professional and not engage the opposing fans in confrontation as that can only lead to more disorder.  I also think that the coaches should have enough competence to know they can’t start yelling at refs or fans or engaging in arguments instead of coaching the kiddos.   These days, it seems that almost anything goes, but when the party in authority chooses to use that power to penalize the opposing fans it’s pretty arbitrary. 

Have a Good One!